High-performance radar systems enabled by new TI multicore DSPs

SAN JOSE, CALIF. Texas Instruments (TI) engineers (TI) released three new products built on its KeyStone multicore architecture that uses the TMS320C66x digital signal processor (DSP) generation at the DesignWest show in San Jose, Calif., this week. The devices are ideal for radar applications from portable to large-scale radar systems as well as software defined radio (SDR) applications, said Ramesh Kumar, business manager for multicore processors at TI.

Processing requirements for radar are going through the roof and with beamforming moving from analog to digital high-performance floating point DSPs are required, Kumar says. The TMS320C665x DSPs can perform combined fixed- and floating-point operations for small form factor applications at low power.

The C6657 features two 1.25-GHz DSP cores, that provide as much as 80 GMACs and 40 GFLOPs, and the C6655 and C6654 single core solutions deliver as much as 40 GMACs and 20 GLOPS and 27.2 GMACs and 13.6 GLOPS, respectively. Under normal operating conditions, the C6657, C6655 and C6654 power specifications come in at 3.5W, 2.5W and 2W, respectively.

The device is 21mm x 21mm and has an operating temperature of -55 to 100 degrees Celsius. Its thinner design also enables it to fit into many tight spaces in military DSP systems, Kumar says.

Other applications include imaging, video surveillance, audio, medical, and video infrastructure. For more information go to booth #1320 at DesignWest this week or visit www.ti.com/multicore.